Case Analysis The Treadway Tire Company Job Dissatisfaction and High Turnover at Lima Tire Plant July 26th, 2010 Submitted By (Group 3): Abhinav Gogia – 2010005 Aakash Tyagi -2010002 Aditya Gaurav – 2010017 Aditya Kalani – 2010018 Animesh Jain – 2010030 Objective Ashley Wall, Director Human Resources for one of the plants of The Treadway Tire Company situated in Lima has to submit an effective plan to resolve the issues that are faced in the plant and are impacting the productivity and efficiency of the plant. The major issues to focus here are: Increase in Employee Turnover resulting into High Cost of Production ? No Induction pathway/ plan Case Analysis Briefing The tire plant at Lima is passing through a tough situation as margins and profits have abruptly decreased due to skyrocketing raw material cost and intense global competition. Although there is nothing much that can be done of increasing raw material costs, however the overall costs can be definitely reduced by reducing the employee turnover. As per the facts there are major morale issues in the line-foreman and hourly workers segment and this disease spreading in the entire plant.
Now, there are several reasons at fundamental level that have resulted into this high employee turnover: ? Employee un-satisfaction The tried and tested approach of management by the line foreman focussed on getting the work done by the workers by hook or by crook. This resulted in decreasing morale of the workers because of unfavourable working environment. The line foreman was not having any authority over the workers, as all issues were being resolved by grievance cell without any information being shared with the line foremen; which made them feel powerless and they were losing respect for the work they did. Job disengagement of employees The workers and foreman were ill treated, they were only being judged based on their target achievement and had nowhere to go due to which they were not feeling left out of the organization. The organization goals were not in sync with the goals of the workers. Thus employee disengagement was further decreasing the annual incomes and earnings. ? Organization commitment Though the employees were given competitive wages but there was no affective commitment and normative commitment of employees for their organization. The orkers were not able to foresee any opportunities for their career growth within the organization. ? Lack of industrial knowledge of employees (no trainings provided) There was no formal training plan for the new line foremen, which made them get into a fight for survival kind of a situation, this was made worse by the fact that they were also not much aware about the practices to be used so as to handle union workers in a proper manner, this created major hurdles for them while handling hourly workers. The only mentoring they got was a small chat with the supervisor, which was also not the case always.
Lack of communication There was no hierarchy of communication among various levels in the organization, due to which the targets set were un-realistic. Also, there was no proper channel for addressing the problems encountered by foremen. Despite of all these problems, all eyes were thereon this plant as there were huge investments done on this plant; therefore the senior management has great expectations from this plant. Solutions ? Agile(360 degree) Appraisal and Feedback System This solution will help in resolving problem related to job dissatisfaction.
The human resource department should take frequent feedback of the employees so as to understand that how satisfied the employees are. The feedback should be taken from employees at all levels. Also quarterly reviews and appraisal mechanism should be introduced, which should include all the stakeholders in the process and provide them an opportunity to question if they have been rated unsatisfactorily as per their point of view. Adding to this there should be open door policy so that the employee should feel free to come across with his/ her issues.
Notable the foreman should also be taken care of in this system, as they are the play an important role in achieving targets. ? Developing an organized Induction Pathway This solution will help in resolving problem related to lack of industrial knowledge of employees There should be a structured and standardized induction training pathway which should focus both on the organization and on the job training, this will help in acclimating the individuals with the working environment and hence will increase productivity. ? Daily Monitoring and Status Meetings
This solution will help in resolving problem related to Lack of communication Status meetings should be introduced on daily or alternate days so as to analyze the status of the production. The meeting should be attended by a contact source from each department. It will also help in setting realistic targets for the day and minimizing the pipelines. We can include these five questions in the daily status meetings: Q1) What did we do right today? Q2) What did we do wrong today? Q3) What was the major hurdle we encountered? Q4) What should we avoid tomorrow?
Q5) What were the major learning’s? A proper record should be maintained of such meetings for future reference as well. ? Showing growth pathways to the employees This solution will help in resolving problem related to Job disengagement of employees and Organization commitment To ensure full engagement of the employees, the organization should show the growth platform at each level, it should also make them realize that the organization goals are in sync with goals of the employees. This will help in improving the commitment of employees towards organization.
Also, there should be internal exchange programs and reallocation of employees vertically and horizontally so as to ensure that the employees do not feel complacent after certain period of time and remain involved in their work at all times. Approach to be implemented Initially the platform should be set focussing on the first and second solution and when the things will be streamlined, the organization should focus on the other solutions mentioned above so as to address the problems and hence improving the productivity and efficiency of the organization.
References The case is analyzed and the solutions are provided after doing research from the following resources: • GJ Balu, Journal of Management, Winter 1986, Pg 577-584 • Towers Perrin Survey of 90,000 employees – refer Harvard Business Review June 2010 Facts produced in the survey Companies with low levels of employee engagement have 33% annual decline in annual income and 11% earning income. Those with high levels have 19% increase in operating income and 28% growth in earning share.
